The language of choice

Research has maintained that familiarity with school language is crucial to progress in early years and while the verdict does not counter this position, it seeks to enable an element of choice in education.

June 12, 2014 12:51 pm

Shivali Tukdeo

Supreme Court judgment marks an important turn in the debate on language education policy.

In 1876, Ramabai, 18, set off on a long and arduous journey from south India to Bengal and the north to become a scholar. Trained in Sanskrit scriptures, philosophy and languages early on, Ramabai would soon be conferred the title “Pandita”, speak seven languages and go on to write engaging scholarly books in Marathi and English. Travels between different languages and knowledge systems were central to Ramabai’s educational experience and her work.

Language continued to occupy centrestage in the story of India’s formal education as well and its steady expansion over the course of the last century. Despite the tradition of plurilingual pedagogic practices and an outpouring of research on the importance of home-language(s) in education, the place of language remains contested and forever unresolved. Given that considerations of employability, higher educational opportunities and regional pride increasingly govern the perceptions of language in education, no policy decision can confine itself to educational ideals alone.

In this context, the judgment by a constitutional bench of the Supreme Court (dated May 7) offers a significant turn in a series of long-standing dilemmas on language education policy. Responding to the government order on the medium of instruction in 1989 that eventually became the language policy in Karnataka in 1994, the bench considered the following questions: (a) Who is the rightful authority to decide the medium of instruction for students? (b) What does “mother tongue”mean and who is the rightful authority to decide what can be called mother tongue in a particular context? (c) Can education in one’s mother tongue be imposed? (d) Is the right to choose implicit in the right to education? Discussions of each of these questions were framed within the scope of three articles in the Constitution: Article 350A, which calls for the state and local authorities to ensure adequate facilities for instruction in the mother tongue to children from linguistic minority communities; Article 19, which is entitled “right to freedom”, including freedom of speech and expression, freedom to form unions, move and practice a profession; and Article 21A, which resolves that the state shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age 6 to14.

Thinking through the questions of medium of instruction in light of the constitutional scheme, the judgment involves four important points. Adhering to a rather narrow interpretation of the term “mother tongue” the judgment holds that in the context of the Constitution, mother tongue would mean “the language of the linguistic minority in continued…